It's not just McCain: Lobbyists and Legislators are Too Cozy

Update: Lots of others making the same points better than I.

In Henry IV, one of Shakespeare's villains says, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." If Shakespeare were writing today, he might have said "lobbyists."

American media is so obsessed with sex that it overlooks the real importance of the John McCain-Vicki Iseman story. It's not really about whether McCain and Iseman were sleeping together. While it's fun for some to tut-tut about the septagenarian having a romp with a woman thirty years his junior, the more important question for our democracy is why are John McCain and other legislators so easily bought with flattery and charm of lobbyists selling their influence to the highest bidder? McCain's story is no different than John Husted's or Mike Turner's.

Over and over again we see stories of people in the legislature having cozy personal relationships with people trying to influence their votes. This is what should outrage voters--the friendly relationships that grant the rich and powerful access and influence that the rest of can't dream of having.

Look at just a couple of the recent examples, starting McCain's long history of bumping and grinding with lobbyists.


First, read the CPI's invaluable 2000 report on McCain. It reads like a dummy's guide to St. John the Deceiver. Here's just an excerpt, dealing with the Keating S & L scandal. Notice the first graph below on McCain's close personal relationship with Keating:

McCain got more than just campaign money from Keating. McCain, his family, and their babysitter flew on Keating-owned or -chartered jets nine times, including three trips to Cat Cay, Keating’s vacation estate in the Bahamas. And in 1986, Keating cut Cindy McCain and her father into Fountain Square Shopping Center, a strip mall that American Continental Corporation built and managed, for a $359,000 investment. (emphasis mine)

It was just a matter of time before Keating called in his chits. When he did, it was over Lincoln Savings and Loan, a thrift in Irvine, California, that he’d bought in 1984. It turned out that Keating was raiding the assets of Lincoln’s depositors to finance posh real estate projects such as The Phoenician, a $300 million, 654-room hotel and spa in Scottsdale, Arizona, and his own lavish lifestyle. By 1986, Edwin Gray, the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, grew worried that Lincoln had strayed too far from its core mortgage business, and began to clamp down. Keating turned to his friends in Washington for help.

On March 19, 1987, Keating appealed to McCain in person to meet with federal regulators on his behalf. At first McCain balked, but then, on April 2, he joined Senators Alan Cranston of California, John Glenn of Ohio, and Dennis DeConcini of Arizona in DeConcini’s office to meet with Gray. On April 9 the four senators, joined by Don Riegle of Michigan, sat down in San Francisco with four more regulators from the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Following the meetings, the board delayed its seizure of Lincoln Savings and Loan for two more years.

When the federal government finally took over Lincoln in 1989, the bailout cost taxpayers $2.6 billion, making it the most expensive S&L bailout in U.S. history. About 17,000 small investors also lost a total of $190 million.

Here in Ohio, the leader of our State House was caught doing the very same things. John Husted was caught by Ohio papers travelling back and forth on fishing trips and to college bowl games as the guest of corporate lobbyists. These revelations amounted to little more than a minor embarrassment for Husted, who simply explained that the lobbyists in question were friends of his and that should settle it.

And then there's the case of Ohio 3rd Rep. Mike Turner, whose GOP cronies in Dayton first created a slush fund to pay for his consultants under the table, then most recently directed a million dollar no-bid contract to his wife.

Stories like this happen day after day after day in Washington and Columbus. When it's a good looking blonde and a presidential candidate, it makes front page news. But the run-of-the-mill, day-to-day, instititionalized corruption doesn't seem to generate the same kind of interest.